Research Reports

In recent years, a large number of educational systems, following the recommendations of international organisations, have introduced a competence-based emphasis into their traditionally subject-based curriculum. This move, beyond what any document can deal with, does not seem to find its way into everyday school practice easily or with instant results. This paper explores encounters and clashes between policy and practice regarding a competence-based curriculum framework.

This case study deals with the implementation of ongoing training, offered wholly through distance and online learning, and conducted within the framework of an inter-university partnership linking two European countries. The case story relates the experience of several instructional designers who were in charge of designing, developing, and implementing an online course as well as conducting follow-up assessment on the skills acquired.

The principles of communities of practice (CoP) and networked learning in higher education, are illustrated with a case study. The article explores the interplay of collaboration and cooperation, communities of practice and networked learning; describes how this interplay has operated in iCollab; and highlights opportunities and challenges of learning, teaching and interacting with students in networked publics in higher education.

In this study 7th grade students were observed completing a series of lessons in an online science course to explore their thinking and strategies for using curriculum resources for learning, their thinking and strategies for self-assessing “assessment readiness”, and to explore the relationship between resource use and student grade in Science, end-of-lesson assessment score, and student learning style. A convergent-parallel mixed methods research design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the same phase of this study, in order to merge the results and gain a greater understanding of student learning in the online environment.

A consensus is emerging that blended learning, a term that embraces various combinations of classroom presence and online study, will become the most common approach to teaching and learning in higher education. Does this consensus simply aim to safeguard the tradition of face-to-face teaching against an invasion of fully online learning - or can blended learning raise higher education to new levels of effectiveness and quality? We attempt an answer to this question.

This report undertakes a review of the current data landscape across English higher education institutions, looking at data collections, learning analytics and the current barriers to implementing better data management and data analytics. It then looks ahead to how the higher education (HE) sector may change in the next 5-10 years, how institutions can take advantage of the exciting opportunities that greater engagement with data and analytics offer, and how HE students stand to benefit.

Demand for ICT skills and workers is increasing as the disruptive impact of digital technologies spreads across the Australian economy. To position our economy to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by this digital disruption, we must ensure that the Australian workforce is equipped with the ICT skills required for businesses to innovate and grow. This report brings together a number of data sources in analysing the ICT skills that will be required of Australia’s workforce in driving future growth and innovation.

This report highlights the powerful impact of state leadership in driving critical policy decisions at the national and state level to support broadband networks, bandwidth capacity, and Wi-Fi implementation and home access for low-income families. The report includes examples of states providing leadership for effective and efficient broadband and Wi-Fi implementation and is organized into the following categories; K-12 Broadband and Wi-Fi Connectivity, State Leadership for Infrastructure, State Broadband Implementation Highlights and State Advocacy for Federal Support of Broadband.

The microblogging service Twitter offers a platform that social studies educators increasingly use for professional development, communication, and class activities, but to what ends? The authors drew on Deweyan conceptions of participatory learning and citizenship aims of the field as lenses through which to consider social media activities. To determine how and why social studies educators use Twitter, 303 K-16 self-identified social studies educators were surveyed in this study.

The information provided in this report is based on the national contributions received from the Scientix National Contact Points representing 30 countries, in response to a survey on national measures and initiatives to increase students’ interest in pursuing STEM studies and careers, launched in the summer of 2015 by European Schoolnet. This report has a special focus on teacher education policies and initiatives.